Chapter Seventeen
I REFUSE TO GO HOME for Thanksgiving. It would be my first with separated parents and I can’t handle that right now, though I sell it to Mom and Dad on the basis of logistical hell. North Carolina to Atlanta for an eight-hour layover and then up to Cleveland, just for a long weekend when I’ll come home for Christmas two weeks later anyway? Absolutely not.
Both my parents offer (separately) to pay for my ticket. But who would I take up on that? To accept one but not the other feels like no matter what, I’m rejecting someone. I beg them to drop it, and they do, reluctantly, as long as I promise to come home for Christmas.
Gen, bless her, decides to fly down using that sweet, sweet mid-level marketing manager money. She exits her airport Uber in a vivid cobalt-blue faux-fur jacket and denim miniskirt.
“Where did you even come from? LA?” I ask in disbelief, greeting her in leggings and a baggy sweatshirt.
“New England, bitch.” She wraps me in a hug. “I thought I told you to tell North Carolina to expect me.”
Only about half of the cohort went home for Thanksgiving. Particularly for the people from the West Coast, like Hazel, it wasn’t worth the cost, either. For those of us who stayed in Perrin, Kacey invited us all over for a Friendsgiving and graciously said Gen should come, too.
I take her on an apartment tour that lasts twenty seconds given how small it is. She opens the refrigerator, surveying and nodding appreciatively at my condiment selection before walking into my bedroom, dropping her stuff in the middle of the floor like she’s moving in.
“You’re not wearing that to the party, are you?” Gen asks as she begins unzipping her suitcase.
“No, I’m going to wear my night guard, too.” I shake the dental case perched on my bedside table.
“Okay, good, as long as you’re accessorizing.” She sighs in relief.
I end up in a forest-green sweaterdress and boots. We make the twenty-minute walk to Kacey’s place, who greets us with a big smile, the smell of turkey and cinnamon wafting from the kitchen.
Tonight it’s just me, Gen, Hazel, Kacey, and Jerry. Wiebke, not even an American citizen, had more pressing Thanksgiving plans than the rest of us.
The group introduces themselves to Gen, but she opts for hugs over handshakes. “Oh, I already know all of you. I literally stalked everyone on Instagram in August.”
I pinch her shoulder and she shrugs. “Kacey’s my main best-friend competition, Hazel’s the mysterious artiste, and Jerry, I don’t know, I feel like you’re probably the smartest one here.”
Jerry looks like he’s just met a celebrity.
We gather around Kacey’s table and set our sides next to her turkey and stuffing. I brought the pumpkin pie, which I texted a photo of to my parents earlier in separate threads. We pile plates full of food and sit around the table, passing red wine and serving utensils. Unasked, Gen gives an abbreviated history of our friendship (met in eighth grade, bonded over creative writing, she was the architect of my first kiss, et cetera).
“So you work in marketing now?” Kacey asks. “Do you do any writing yourself still?”
Gen nods. “Yes, but mostly erotic fan fiction.” Jerry spits out his wine.
“That sounds amazing,” Hazel says, and I turn to her in shock.
“You read fan fiction?” I blurt out. Hard to imagine Hazel stooping to something so pedestrian.
“I contain multitudes,” she shrugs.
Thirty minutes into eating, the doorbell rings and Kacey gets up. “Oh yeah, I forgot that William was going to come, too.” I could kill her.
Gen surely gets whiplash from turning her head so fast to face me. I shake my head subtly, as if to say, I swear to god, act natural .
In seconds, Will arrives with a bottle of wine and an apple pie, fresh and hot, which he blames for his lateness.
“William Langford, as I live and breathe,” Gen exclaims, standing up. He casts me a quick look—the most intimately we’ve communicated in weeks—then allows her to hug him.
“Oh, right, same high school,” Hazel says.
“That’s fucking right,” Gen says. “This kid here was the literary wunderkind of Rowan School. Also an asshole in workshop. Hope he’s grown out of that.”
Will flushes and Gen gives me a sly wink, which makes me blush, too.
“Nice to see you, too, Genevieve,” he says. Kacey arranges another chair next to Gen for Will.
“Didn’t want to go home?” Hazel asks Will.
“My mom went to Dayton to see my grandparents. But I didn’t feel like making the seven-hour drive.” I feel the familiar pang of acknowledgment that his family, in a different and undeniably worse way, is broken, too.
The rest of the dinner is relaxed. Gen catches Will up on the last ten years of her dating history (and luckily does not request the same from him), Jerry procures some links to Gen’s fan fiction (he didn’t ask—she offered ), and I manage to avoid eye contact with Will for the entire dinner.
After eating our pies (Will’s, unfortunately, is better), the group retires to the living room for Christmas music and Cards Against Humanity. Needing a break from socializing, I go to the kitchen to wash dishes. I feel someone behind me before I can turn around.
“Just wanted to get a glass,” a low, quiet voice says.
It’s Will. I look at him and offer all I can—a clipped smile—then turn back to wash a plate sticky with gravy. The cupboard with glasses is right above me, but I don’t move.
He’s behind me now and he steps close enough that I can feel heat radiate off his body. He reaches over my head to open the cupboard. If I leaned back a centimeter, we would be touching. How accidental I could make it look. I smell him and I feel him, but we don’t touch. That would be too much.
I focus on washing. He grabs the glass but doesn’t step away.
“Can I get some cold water?”
I nod and shuffle aside to make room. He fills his glass and stays close to me, silent for a moment.
“Nice that Gen came down to see you.”
“Yeah, it was.” I feel him nod and start to leave when I open my mouth. “Wait.”
He freezes.
“Do you have something to say to me?” I ask.
“Such as?”
I frown, then turn completely away from the sink to orient myself toward his broad, lanky frame. “Such as an explanation for why you’ve become so distant.”
He takes a deep breath, and I watch it move through his body. “I told you weeks ago. I think it’s best if I focus on writing. The fellowship…” He cuts out.
“And yet, you’re here.” I look around the cramped kitchen, hearing the sounds of Kacey’s high-pitched laughter from the living room. “You’re being social. Normal. You’re hanging out with friends. Why aren’t you writing right now? You can be serious about school and still be nice to me, you know.”
“Are we friends ?” He lets out a hollow laugh.
“Yes!” I take a step closer to him, and this time, he’s the one who takes a step back. “Look, I know it’s been sort of a roller coaster of weirdness since we started here, but—”
“I knew you weren’t doing the dishes!” Gen exclaims, moving into the kitchen with her glass of wine. I realize that, out of reflex, I’ve taken a massive step back from Will. “Y’all, your classmates are lovely and I’m of course extremely charming, but it’s getting a bit weird that the only two people I really know at this party are hanging out without me.”
I love Gen, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she knew what must have happened and selfishly wanted to see it for herself. Because now she stands before us, sizing us up, cataloging our body language, the angles of our feet.
“I was just refilling my water,” Will says coolly, then casts me a quick glance before leaving me with Gen.
“It’s not what you think,” I hiss once we’re alone.
“An awkward fraught interaction between two idiots who can’t seem to keep away from each other?” I glare and she grins. “Babe, what exactly do you want from him? I need you to explain this to me, because I don’t understand what the problem is.”
She’s keeping her voice very low, because she knows I don’t do intimate discussions in public at audible decibels. Still, I throw my hands up in frustration, almost knocking over a precariously perched wineglass I’d left to dry.
“Literally just a normal, friendly classmate relationship. Yes, I had feelings for him in high school, and yes, they resurfaced in college, but, Gen”—I drop my voice even lower—“when we kissed and then when we kissed a second time drunk, I did what Bridget always tells me to do. To see what the decision feels like in my body and react accordingly. And both times I felt like it was good and great but I knew it wouldn’t last and that he’d inevitably reject me. I’m not interested in emotional pain for two years. I just want to write .” I say the last word with a whine.
“Listen to yourself.” She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “ Both times I felt like it was good and great. Your body was fine with the decision. It’s your head that’s getting in the way.”
“You don’t understand. I feel in my bones that this won’t last.”
She shakes her head with a sigh. “I think that’s your mind, babe. Not your bones.”
I shove her lightly in the shoulder. “We need to stop talking about this. They’re probably out there thinking I’m having a breakdown or something.”
“No, you’re right. Better to mislead them,” she quips, and I shove her again as she loops her arm in mine, walking us back out to the living room.
We get home stuffed and exhausted. Gen’s here two more days, and because we have important plans to go on walking tours of campus and Uber ourselves to my favorite cake shop tomorrow, we don’t talk much before we fall asleep. She dozes off almost immediately on the air mattress I’ve set up next to my bed, and I start absently scrolling on my phone.
But then I get a text from Will.
I’m sorry I’ve been distant.
I want to turn on the light and sit up, in order to put my full focus on those five words, but I force myself to stay in the dark so Gen can sleep. I see he’s typing and my entire body feels like it’s been put on ice in anticipation. I wait another minute, trying to formulate a response in case he doesn’t say anything else.
But he sends another text before I get the chance:
I’m not really good at sharing emotions out loud so I’d rather write this to you. I know I’ve perhaps sent some mixed messages in the last few months but you’re right that we’re at this program for a reason. You want to reaffirm what you love about writing, and I need to get serious. College was rough for me, as you know, and I did some things I’m not proud of. I’m trying to prove I belong in this program. And even though my dad’s not here, I feel a need to make him proud too.
I read the words over and over, utterly confused. Things he’s not proud of? What is he talking about? Is this some strange, roundabout apology for how things ended at Middlebury?
He’s still typing, so I don’t say anything yet. I hate that he’s done this right before I’m about to fall asleep, because however this conversation ends, I know it will keep me up all night.
A minute later, his reply comes in, a firm shut door to a relationship I’d only ever half hoped was maybe possible.
My concentration’s slipping, I’m losing my grip in class. My writing’s a mess. I can’t do confusing or distracting right now. So if I’m distant, I sincerely apologize. But I think it’s best for the both of us right now.
My mouth gapes and I let out a scoff that causes Gen to stir in her sleep. As I read over his texts once more, my mind compiles a supercut of the past four months, each moment more annoying than the last. Me on his shoulders in the corn maze. His groan into my ear as he slicked his finger over me at Halloween, my hips bucking against his chest. The flirty comments we’ve sent each other back and forth on our workshopped poems.
Gen was wrong. I feel it in my mind, my bones, my body. And I hate, so much, being right.
At this point, Will’s rejected me three times. First in high school, when he rejected my writing. Then at Middlebury, when he made it crystal clear he wasn’t interested. Now, again, when I stupidly tried to get closer, ignoring every signal he’s sent. How come I never learn?
I need to stop this.
I send him back a single word: Fine . I wait for the dots to indicate typing. I almost will them to come, for him to fight me for more of a reaction.
But they don’t. So I shove my phone aside and lie flat on my back, trying to lull myself to sleep with Gen’s soft breathing.
I stare at the dim ceiling for the rest of the night.